Traditions
by wolftez
Summary: Karen and Frank share a quiet evening together on Christmas Eve.


Karen couldn't explain it, couldn't really put her finger on why she had this pesky feeling deep in her gut that told her to take off work for the rest of the day and head home. It wasn't even a bad feeling, but rather, a satisfied one. It was almost like anticipation.

That was silly, though, because what was waiting for her at home? A few cold ones that would be empty by morning, her nosy and very loud neighbor, Mrs. Randall, and her pathetic two-foot-tall Christmas tree she'd gotten several years ago on a whim, loosely decorated with odd pieces of her jewelry. She brought that out every December as a sort of tradition for herself, placing the sad, fake tree on the lone coffee table in her living room.

It was Christmas Eve, and maybe that was why she wanted to leave. Even though she had no one to spend this holidays with, that holiday magic everyone raved about seemed to be touching her soul anyway no matter how hard she tried to be indifferent. Might as well roll with it.

Foggy had already informed her that he and Marci were headed to the sunshine state, ready to strut out their first Christmas together in scorching style. Karen was happy for them, and even though Foggy had extended the invitation to her, she knew it was more out of friendly obligation than an actual desire for her company. Foggy was her closest friend, and while she knew he didn't want to see her spending the holidays alone, she was certain Marci wouldn't appreciate the third wheel. Somehow, Karen had convinced him that she was going to visit family over the break, and while she didn't think he fully believed her, he didn't call her out, which she was grateful for.

Since Foggy started and ended her list of 'friends she could rely on', her decline of his invitation pretty much ensured another year of drinking the night away, pretending she was okay with the state of her life.

Honestly, she was okay with her solo tradition. She'd been doing it that way for so long, it was just a way of life now.

She'd already told Ellison that she was taking off for the holidays early, which he readily agreed to. She smiled to herself as she thought about how he would have probably shooed her out the door anyway if she had tried to stay overtime.

The elevator taking her up to her apartment was slugging its way up, taking its sweet time as if it knew Karen was about to burst with all the energy bouncing around inside her, lighting her up from the inside, and it wanted to prolong her nerves.

The ding of the bell alerting her to her floor drew a relieved breath from her as she hastily pulled the gate open and all but jogged to her door.

When she left her apartment that morning, it was terribly cold and dark, a side effect of living in a crappy apartment building with more-often-than-not broken heating; but all of that was a complete opposite to what she was suddenly thrust into as she stood in her open doorway after unlocking it, her jaw comically dropping like a cartoon character in a comic.

The air was toasty, smacking her in the face with heat she desperately soaked up during this fierce winter weather. There was no corner of the place untouched by artificial light, the bright yellow of fairy lights curving in downward slopes as they lined the edges of her ceiling, the faint shine exposing all the dark spots, effectively snuffing them out with its soft glow until it was like it was never there. On her cluttered dining room table sat a couple of boxes filled with what looked like more Christmas decorations spilling out of one of them. As she closed the door and cautiously stepped further into the room, her heel caught on something, and she noticed she was standing in a huge layer of cotton spread out evenly across the living room floor. It looked like snow with the way the light hit it, encasing it in an orange tint, not unlike her view outside at night when the lampposts reflected off of the packed in snow that was beginning to fade from their last snow storm.

As lovely as the lights and the fake snow were to her dreary apartment, it was nothing compared to the towering tree placed directly in the living room, right where her coffee table and mock Christmas tree had stood less than twelve hours ago.

This was no plastic, stick-the-handles-in-the-appropriate-holes type of tree; this was a real, honest to god, live tree that needed a bucket of water beneath it to keep it fresh and everything. It had to be nearly seven feet tall, as tall as the ceiling clearance would allow. It was extremely well trimmed, like one she'd see in a department store at the mall. The only difference here was that the lights on the tree weren't lit up and only the top half of the tree was decorated with silver and gold banded garland, the bottom half empty, making it look half-naked.

There was a half-naked Christmas tree in her living room.

The thought was so absurd, so hilarious to her that she couldn't contain herself. She laughed, and the sound was harsh to her ears, sounding more like a yelp as she quickly moved to cover her mouth with one hand. She giggled into her hand, eyes squeezing closed with the force of it as she let herself react for a second.

To anyone else, coming home to a strangely decorated apartment would have raised alarm bells. It could have been anyone, some serial killer with a sick Christmas fetish who liked to decorate their murder scene before they attacked, or some weird Santa who broke into people's houses to spread some 'holiday cheer'.

To Karen, though… She hadn't expected that he would come.

Karen had felt like a silly teenager with a crush when she did it that morning, but right before she left for work, she'd glanced upon the vase of flowers Frank had given to her some months ago. It was their own personal line of communication, nothing more, but every time she studied the pretty arrangement of flowers, her stomach pooled with warmth, a coiling feeling that let her know she was safe—always. That he was out there somewhere keeping watch over her like an avenging angel. _Her_ avenging angel.

When she watered the flowers that morning, she was overcome with such a longing to see him. She hadn't used it in a while, nothing newsworthy to tell him, and she couldn't bring herself to call him over for personal reasons. No, she … she couldn't let herself think about what happened back at the hotel, what _almost_ happened in the elevator. Time was never on their side.

Despite everything being wrong place, wrong time for the two of them, she had gotten swept up in the magic of Christmas and took a chance. She'd decorated the vase with the only holiday ribbon she had, then gently placed the flowers on her windowsill, curtains wide open to make up for the closed window, and then she left.

She never expected that he'd bring Christmas right into her living room.

"Shit."

Karen whipped her head to the hallway, suppressing a smile at the frazzled way Frank swiveled his head from her to the tree to the remaining garland in his arms, and back to her, a quick loop.

"Frank," she said softly, afraid to taint the atmosphere with her voice. "What is this?"

He visibly swallowed before answering. "You weren't supposed to be home for another three hours."

She didn't bother asking how he knew her schedule; _of course,_ he knew; he knew a hell of a lot more about her, and while the thought should have scared her, that the big bad punisher knew personal details about her life and work schedule through his own personal means of finding out, it only made sense to her. He would never abuse his knowledge of her, and more importantly, she trusted him.

Karen merely smirked at him before reaching down to slide her high heels off, a sigh vibrating through her throat at the relief of pressure after a long day. She undressed the rest of her heavy wear, leaving herself in only the white button-up blouse and black pencil skirt before moving to the kitchen, letting her voice travel across the room.

"Beer?" she asked. He mumbled something behind her, but she didn't try to decipher it before she scooped up two bottles anyway, deciding that she wasn't about to get tipsy all by herself. The lids clanked musically to her ears as she grabbed the bottle opener and popped the lids off. A loud pop echoed around the room as she knocked off the aluminum caps, then she strode over to the couch and tiredly slumped down into the soft cushions. She set his beer down on the floor beside the couch, the coffee table replaced for a tree, and fell back against the cushions, closing her eyes as she took that first, cool sip.

The liquid was numbing, the initial bitter taste never any easier the older she got. But she didn't drink beer for the taste of it, anyway.

It was only a few moments later that Frank collected himself, the cushion beside her sinking down with the weight of him. She opened her eyes, her head falling to the side to study him.

Like it always did, her heart stalled a little at witnessing the being that was Frank Castle. For many other men who'd chanced upon Frank, their hearts had stalled, as well, though for a reason Karen had never experienced beyond their initial meeting: fear. Fear that that was going to be the last day of their lives, that their reckoning had come in the form of a broken man hellbent on revenge. The very thought of it instilled a little bit of fear in her, as well, though not for herself—never for herself—but for Frank. She wondered if one day he would collapse under the weight of everything he had done, every person he had killed, every family he'd indirectly torn apart. She knew there would come a day when the punisher would pay for everything he'd done.

She also knew she would be right there beside him, ready to lie beside him and hold him as he broke apart, ready to support him when he went to piece himself back together again from scratch. She knew it was a rediscovery mission he'd have to take by himself, but that didn't mean she wouldn't be there in case he needed her.

Because that was what they did: they took care of each other.

Frank half sighed, half groaned, enjoying the fresh taste as much as she did. His eyes cut down to her briefly before turning back to the unfinished tree in front of him, narrowing his eyes.

"I, uh … I kind of wanted it to be a surprise."

"Trust me, Frank, I've never been more surprised to walk into my own apartment. It's like a Winter Holiday Spectacular in here."

He took another anxious drink of his beer, stretching the time out as he nearly downed it by half. Gold and silver garland still hung wrapped around his arms loosely as he pulled the bottle from his lips. Karen, again, fought the intense need to grin.

"It's really beautiful," she said quietly, gazing all around them at the lights show he'd strung up in her very crowded living room. "I haven't had my place like this since I was a girl."

Frank glanced at her curiously, her mention of the past enough to get him to forget about his self-consciousness about the whole surprise decorating thing.

"That so?"

Karen nodded, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth as she straightened on the couch, giving the tree all her attention. "When my brother and I were kids, my dad made a show of trying to display the house as the best and brightest on the cul de sac. He hired decorators to come in and decorate the tree inside and string up the lights all around the living room, the foyer, the kitchen, all the places downstairs and even the hallway upstairs. The lawn was covered in fake snow and ornaments and, like I said, the brightest lights on the block."

It was one of the few memories of her family that she let herself dwell on from time to time since it didn't bring the heavy wash of emotions most of her other memories brought. Christmas was always a time of celebration in her house, a time untainted by the anomalies that usually plagued her strict household.

They were happy memories, but somehow her voice sounded forlorn to her own ears as she relayed her childhood to Frank.

She attempted a smile, stopped halfway, settled for a clear of her throat. "When I moved out, when I came to the big city and started my own life the way I wanted it, it never really crossed my mind to try and live up to the family hype on Christmas. It became just another day for me."

Frank was quiet as she spoke, and she wished he would say something, lead the conversation away to something light. She loved what he had done to her place, loved the wash of light that coursed through her bones, making her feel young and hopeful again. But talking about it was something she could get by with skipping.

"Christmas was a big deal in my house, right?" he said, a ghost of a smile on his lips. He tipped the bottle in his hands back and forth, swinging it between his thumb and index finger. "You know, you got kids in the house, the holiday is bound to end up being the most magical day of the year. Lisa, she used to want to start decorating right after Halloween was over, yeah, and we'd have to find something to tide her over with until Thanksgiving was over. Then we'd bring out the big guns; lights, snow, a blow-up reindeer and Santa tied to the lawn. The tree was always last. Lisa said it was the most important part of the holiday, and," he huffed a laugh, "who am I to tell her otherwise?"

Frank swallowed, his throat bobbing audibly in the quiet of her living room. He tilted his head down, but Karen caught the bright sheen reflected in his eyes as the lights from the ceiling flashed against them.

This was bigger than Karen; it always was. Her heart felt heavy after hearing his tale, and she took another drink, only now beginning to feel the buzz goes through her, the hazy cloud fogging her mind, making her feel warm all over.

As much as Karen wished he had done all of this for her—the lights, the tree, the going all out on the garland and ribbons—she knew he was doing this for himself, too. They weren't fresh teenagers who snuck around at night, kissing in the dark, fueled up by an infatuation so naïve it drove them to do insane things under the name of love. They weren't clean cut people with no history, no baggage to wear them down emotionally.

They were broken in so many ways they couldn't even begin to comprehend the extent of it. He had found her when he had lost everything he had ever loved in one, all-encompassing moment. Everything he had ever known was reared up on its ugly head one day, and Karen had met the man who was the result of that. She didn't agree with him, and she didn't excuse him for the things he'd done, but she understood him as a person.

They came to each other with past lives and secrets, but that was what made their relationship real. Whatever it was they shared, whatever bond had tethered between them in the past year since she had met him, it was the most honest relationship in her life at the moment, and it was such a comfort to her. She could shed every mask she wore, and Frank would still look at her as if nothing about her had changed. Because nothing had. She just stopped pretending, and that was probably the thing she loved most about Frank Castle.

So, maybe him being here tonight wasn't wholly about her, but she wasn't petty enough to make this about her. Maybe they both needed this holiday magic everyone spoke about.

"I'm going to go change," she said, setting her beer down on the floor beside the couch as she scooted to the edge, waving a hand to indicate her stifling clothes. "You can go ahead and finish up the tree. Just act like I'm not here." She smiled at him.

Frank half-smiled, watching her as she headed back toward her bedroom. "I don't think you know the difficulty of what you're asking."

"What are you saying, Frank?" she said, stopping at her bedroom door to lean against the threshold. Frank had swung his arm around the back of the couch, so he could still look at her as she spoke. "Can't focus with a pretty girl around?"

Easy, light-hearted banter came easily to her with Frank, she'd realized at some point. It hadn't occurred to her that there was another name for this until much later.

Even from this distance, she could see the blush creep up on his cheeks, coloring his skin to look like roses. He squinted at her. "All I'm saying is when Karen Page steps into a room, her presence is never quiet."

He was so terribly sweet.

As she quickly changed into her blue flannel pajama pants and a loose t-shirt, she couldn't help feeling nervous. Why was her breath coming in breathy little pants? Why were her palms unusually sweaty? Why were Frank's words still echoing around in her mind like the lyrics to her favorite song?

Who was she kidding? She knew exactly why.

When Karen walked back into the living room, Frank had his arms spread out, the garland between his hands and wound around his arm as he walked out from behind the tree. He nodded his head toward the tree.

"You gonna stand there all day, 'cause this tree ain't gonna pretty itself, and I've been staring at this tree way too long. I don't even know if it looks good or not, anymore."

"How long have you been creeping in my apartment today?"

She moved to him, and he gracefully slid the garland from his arm and onto her own, passing the brunt of it into her hands. She slowly began circling the tree, placing the fragile material in slight droops, curving it the way he had been doing to the top of it.

She heard his slight puff of air. Indignant. "You called. I came. You didn't answer when I rang the bell, so I decided to check on you. You know, just in case."

"I don't think I've heard of a sweeter reason for a little unlawful breaking and entering," she said. Frank grunted. "And you just so happened to come by with a box full of Christmas decorations? What if there really were bad guys here? What were you planning on doing, beating them down with an angel topper?"

She giggled, unable to stop herself. Frank was still standing at the front of the tree as she walked around it over and over, placing the garland delicately upon the pine needles. He reached over to scratch at his arm.

"Okay, have your fun, but I'll have you know that that angel topper is a hundred percent glass and able to do some serious damage in close combat. It's downright lethal."

Frank laughed along with her, the sound still a little foreign to her ears. His laugh was beautiful, enough to warm her thoroughly from the inside with its deep, throaty sound, scratching along her insides until her own voice was coarse.

"But, seriously," she said as she finished up at the bottom. She took up the space beside Frank to admire their artwork. "Why the Christmas makeover?"

She glanced over at him, watching the emotions flow through his eyes, but he continued to stare at the tree. With the finished garland, it no longer was a half-naked tree waiting for its skirt. It was a grand ensemble of pine needles and garland, unlit lights poking through the pines of the tree. She smiled at the display, anticipating the moment they would light it up.

Frank squeezed past her for a moment and ruffled around in the stuffed box on her dining room table before returning with the little angel in hand. He held it gently, like one would hold the most precious thing in the world. Then his eyes cut to her, and the depth she was sucked into took her breath away for a second.

"It was so dark in here, Karen, so cold when I walked in this morning. There was no life in here. It didn't feel like the last couple of times you let me in—warm and inviting. Without you, this place was just a place. It didn't _feel_ like a home to me, and that… It made me sad." He clutched the angel even tighter in his grip, staring it down unseeingly. "Then I saw that measly little tree sitting on your coffee table, and I thought hell no. No, this girl is gonna have a real tree, have something real to celebrate around. So, I was able to gather some stuff, got a real tree from downtown, and I brought it all here and got to work."

Karen was half surprised her heart hadn't leaped out of her chest and exploded with all the feeling sponging up inside her. The way he spoke about her house was so blunt, cursory, even … but it was true. She wasn't blind to the fact that her apartment was filled with a bunch of inconsequential appliances that she rarely used, a heater that had one-to-one odds of working properly on any given day, and the dimmest light bulbs Hell's Kitchen had to offer. That was why she never invited anyone over, why she always went out to meet friends or decided to hang out at their modest apartments: this place had never felt like a home to her, either.

It shouldn't have surprised her that Frank could see through this, too. It didn't matter how hard she tried to conceal herself, to protect herself from judgment; Frank had been the only one to not be fooled. He saw right through her every cultivated façade, and she wondered if it was because they were exactly the same on the inside.

Karen thought she could live with that.

She didn't know what to say; any words she could have come up with sounded lame to her in that moment, and she was a damned journalist—words were her forte. But it was like all the air was sucked out of the room making it so hard to even find the will to draw a breath. Time was frozen around the two of them, keeping his eyes locked on her and her eyes on him.

Then, slowly, tentatively, she placed a hand on his bicep, not squeezing, just resting, feeling the corded muscle that had been the downfall of many men; that gave her the safest feeling in the world. Frank sucked in a breath and held it, just like she had. Nothing about him had physically changed, but his eyes almost looked as if he were pleading with her.

To stop? Or, to keep going?

Karen had never thought of herself as a daredevil, but she suddenly realized that that was exactly what she was. She took the risks no one else wanted to take on, she asked the questions others were too scared to ask, and she did not back down from a challenge, no matter the danger that could arise.

It was out of their hands, really, as Karen inched closer, her chest millimeters away from his, his heat emanating from him in waves that made her cheeks warm. She swallowed as her field of vision got smaller and smaller, Frank taking up the entirety of it with his jaw looming close, lips whispering warnings to her. All the air sucked out of the room, making it hard for her to breathe, as she moved ever closer.

Frank's tongue slipped past his lips as he licked them, and Karen wondered if this was their moment.

She almost did it, almost crossed the line they were too shell-shocked to make before, but instinct had her turning her head to the side as she wrapped her arms around his torso instead.

She could feel the relieved breath wash out of him, the puff of air grazing past the top of her head as he slumped ever so slightly, letting his chin rest easily on her head. Then, his own bulky arms wrapped around her shoulders as he clung to her, keeping her snug against his broad chest, solidifying her thought that she had made the right move.

Even through the slight haze of alcohol, she knew they'd hit that snag yet again: wrong place, wrong time. Less than twenty minutes ago, they'd sat on the couch and talked about their families. It wasn't so much a trigger for her, her family having nothing to do with her romantic life, but it was different with Frank—it was always different with him. How could it be okay for her to kiss a man who was still relatively grieving the loss of his wife and kids?

During his whole mission on finding out who called the kill order on his family, he'd always had his family right there beside him. Frank had felt the pain of their losses, sure, but he never really let himself grieve for them. He turned that sad emotion into one of anger and immediately set upon a quest for vengeance. Now that that war was over, though, everything was catching up to him. She thought it was the reason he'd stayed away these past few weeks, and while it hurt her to feel alone again, she never begrudged him that time.

Then, he showed up here and it was so easy for her to forget his current state of mind. She was just so glad to see him and, damn that Christmas magic for making her feel a bit of love on this night.

Tonight was not their time, but she was confident that day would come eventually.

"Thank you," she said, her voice rough with choked back emotion. Those two words would never be enough to encompass everything she felt for what he had done for her tonight, but one day … one day she would be able to tell him everything.

His arms squeezed just a bit tighter, and she felt his chin bump against her head in what she thought was a nod, but then he cleared his throat, answering her properly. "You're welcome."

The words were tight and concise, as though he wasn't used to saying it all that much. She thought she appreciated him just that much more because of it.

Was this what it felt like to not be alone on Christmas? Warm and soft and full of romantic notions that Karen probably wouldn't have felt otherwise. She told herself she wouldn't usually feel this way, but she didn't necessarily know if she believed it.

It couldn't get much better than this. Her and Frank swaying lightly in their locked embrace, the fuzzy glow of fairy lights twinkling down on them from the ceiling, masking them in warmth, their no longer half-naked Christmas tree fully decorated in front of them now. There was just one thing missing.

"Our tree is missing a hat," she said, her cheek squished against his cotton shirt.

Frank finally untangled himself from her with a quick, brief chuckle, and held the topper in front of him as he gazed heavily at it. His eyes cut up to her, and there was lightness there, albeit tinged with sadness. "Maria used to put the angel on top. She'd put the final touch to the tree me and the kids decorated. Fitting, you know, since she was the heart of the family. The brightest part of us."

For the first time since he'd started opening up to her about his family and his memories, he didn't have that forlorn look on his face. It was light and more like fondness that sat in his gaze as he gave her the smallest of smiles.

Frank Castle had reached a new milestone in his life, one that ensured progress was being made.

Karen smiled reassuringly at him, wanting him to recognize his own progress. It was a big deal that he spoke about his family without getting caught up in the dark ending of it all, and she wanted him to know that he deserved this.

She clasped his fingers around the angel, holding his gaze steadily. "You should put it on." His hand clenched ever so slightly in hers, and a muscle jumped in his jaw, but those were the only indicators of his sudden tenseness. "Even though I'd never met your family, from the way you talk about them, I feel like it would make them really happy to see you do this."

She trod carefully, not wanting to offend him with presumptions on his family, but it seemed like the right thing to say. She honestly believed his family would find joy in seeing him finally take the steps toward moving on, seeing him trying to carve out a new path to happiness in this life without them.

Frank's lips were moving steadily, rapidly, whispering words she couldn't quite catch. She had to push down the insane urge to run her finger over his lips, smoothing his verbal anxieties out.

He didn't look upset, so she figured he was mulling the idea over in his mind. He gulped, the sound audible from this close up and nodded jaggedly.

Frank slowly walked up to the tree and gazed at the empty top of it, taking his time. Who knew putting a topper on a Christmas tree could be so emotional? Certainly not Karen. Her father had always taken up that task alone, never even asking her or her brother or her mother who should do the honors. So, she couldn't relate to Frank in this moment, but she could understand his hesitance.

She wondered if she should join him, help him just by being beside him, but then she remembered her earlier resolve and stood her ground. This was a part of that journey he would have to take alone.

It took a minute, but he finally reached up and settled the angel on the pointy end of the tree. The white, almost translucent wings shone with the golden light that covered the entirety of her living room, the angel coming alive with a golden hue.

She'd almost forgotten, but when Frank walked behind the tree and bent down, the tree suddenly came to life, the unlit lights weaved around the tree finally glowing a bright white-gold as he stepped out from behind it, admiring the glow with wonder in his eyes.

Now, the tree was perfect.

Frank joined her, and she was half surprised when he wrapped an arm around her shoulder as they stood with their sides pressed up against each other's to glance over their finished tree. She brought her arm up and slid it around his waist, curling her fingers around his hip.

"Next year, it's your turn to play decorator," he said, and when she glanced up at him, a half smile was tugging at his lips.

"Oh? You plan on sticking around that long to see it?"

He glanced down at her, that softness he always seemed to save for their private conversations taking precedence once more. It amazed her how with only one look, Frank was able to conjure up butterflies in her stomach, dancing around to make her belly feel light.

"If you'll have me."

It was a question, though not plainly stated. His voice was tinged with nerves, the roughness sounding a bit more like gravel than usual, and she knew there was only ever one choice when it came down to him.

"You asked me twice before that if I didn't want to get involved with you, I could go, no questions, no hard feelings. I'm not about to start backing out now, Frank. You're stuck with me now, whether you like it or not."

She was smiling, but Frank was serious as he regarded her, maybe wondering why she always accepted him.

Frank had pushed his way into her life, and, before, he thought he could get away unscathed, just leave a mess in his wake. But Karen was never going to let him get away from her, not without answering some questions first. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being about the unanswered questions and the buried truth—it became about _him_. She kept going back to him just to check in, unable to let him ghost his way out of her life. Miraculously, Frank had been coming back to her, too.

The arm around her neck tightened as he pulled her close and pressed his lips against her forehead, letting them rest there for a good few seconds before he pulled away. Karen smiled, ducking her head as silly feelings of love and romance coursed through her veins, burning her up.

She was happily stuck in a complicated relationship with a person who had been both a loving family man and a mass murderer, and she'd never felt more alive in her entire life.


End file.
